Hey guys, bandwagon!
I'm looking for a drone to do the following: some kind of auto follow feature. Like I can ride my bicycle on the road and it would fly beside me or behind me and film me. And whatever about the drone so that I could turn on the feature and put my phone / controller away and focus on my activity and not fuck around with the drone until I'm ready to be done. This would be outside on streets without too many obstacles to avoid.
Do you have any suggestions?
Have you owned a drone before? I'm going to give you my experiences so far from a new owner with hobbyist RC knowledge and too much time to do research while unemployed.
That being said, I'd give the Air 2 a try. I've had mine a few weeks now and have been over the moon with it.
While biking, you may want to get some kind of mount for the controller/smartphone for your handlebars. The biggest flaw I've run into so far was the problem with the lack of side sensors. This can cause some problems depending on height and what's around you. Downhill MTB? You're gonna have a bad time if you're going full-out and suddenly your drone decides it doesn't want to follow down the trail you just dropped into.
If you're just cruising on a bike? As long as you aren't profile shooting, I'd say you're good. I'm much more aware of just how many lines are in the air around me and was surprised how hard it was to find a local road that was both unused and didn't have trees or power lines along the road.
As far as quality, I've been impressed with the "48MP" sensor, though the fixed aperture can make some photo situations difficult. I'm always trying out different filters to give me the shutter speed I'm looking for. Filming is no different. Few links for you of what I've done.
Second day - finding it fits through small areas with sensors turned off. I'm dumb and shouldn't have done this since it's river below.
Day trip over the mountains to test out my new suspension & flying in the wind. This was ~12mph winds per my notes, with gusts up to 18. Note: This is stabilized in Premiere, but it didn't do a lot.
Wild Horses Monument Flyover. I wanted to test out the wind capabilities after being surprised by the video above. One of my first runs, I caught a nasty updraft that almost pulled the drone away. After being aware of how different the wind was acting 50-100' up, it was much easier to navigate and get a shot that looked decent. I'm trying to figure out the whole cinematography and transition moves and learning some of the finer control needed to look good on video.
Happy to provide any additional information you could want about the Mavic Air 2 if you're still in the market for a drone.
